With school out, we join gardener Sharon Lovejoy and candy-maker Christine Moore for a look at ideas from the kitchen and garden to keep the kids occupied for the summer. We meet a woman who gave up city life and moved to the Catskills to begin a farming life at Flaming Bunny Acres, and Mexican food cook Nancy Zaslovsky teaches us about the delicate sweetness of zucchini blossoms.

Combine dry ingredients in a pot. Add oil and water, and stir quickly. Cook over a medium-low flame, stirring constantly until dough is smooth and forms a ball. Cover pot and remove from flame. Let stand for one hour. Knead until smooth and store in a ziplock bag or air-tight container.

Cream Biscuits Makes 1 dozen biscuits

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix dry ingredients. Add cream and stir lightly with a fork. Dough will be lumpy. With a tablespoon, drop on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle tops of biscuits with sugar. Bake until golden brown, approximately 20 to 25 minutes.

Strawberry Shortcake

2 baskets of strawberries

1 recipe of above biscuits

1 cup whipped cream

Slice strawberries and season them with 1 Tablespoon of sugar and 1 Tablespoon of orange juice. Let them marinate for 1 hour. Slice open biscuits, pour strawberries on top and top with whipped cream.

I originally made this dish with chicken and chicken broth as taught by friend, cooking teacher and flamenco dancer extraordinaire, Reyna Polanca Abrahams in San Miguel de Allende. Soon afterwards I found the sauce to be a perfect complement to whatever fish looks best at the seafood counter. The easy dish is all about summer's golden squash blossoms, which you can find at Mexican markets and farmers markets from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Just about any non-oily fish will work, whether fillet or steak, pan saut-ed, broiled, steamed, baked or grilled. After the sauce and fish are on plates I like to scatter minced red ripe jalape-o chiles, cilantro leaves and a squirt of Mexican lime, as final flavor sparkles.

1. Wash and drain the squash blossoms. Snap off the stems and break off the spiky sepals at the base of the flowers. Spread open and tear out the hard pistil in the center of each blossom and discard.

2. Heat the oil in a saucepan. Saut- the onion and garlic until golden. Pour in the broth. Cook over medium heat 2 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the stove and let the ingredients cool for 3 minutes. Slowly stir in the crema.

3. Grab a handful of blossoms and place them in a blender or processor container with 1/2 cup of the crema mixture. Blend. Stop blending and add another handful of blossoms and more of the crema mixture, pushing down on the ingredients and blending again. Repeat, adding more broth or water as needed until all the blossoms are pur-ed. Pour the pur-e into the saucepan, and season with salt and pepper. Keep warm.

4. Cook the fish of your choice. Ladle sauce onto the center of 6 plates. Top with a piece of fish. Sprinkle the fish with about a dozen tiny specks of red ripe jalape-o chile. Scatter cilantro leaves on top. Squirt with fresh lime.

copyright, Nancy Zaslavsky 2003

Shauna Toh and her husband own Flaming Bunny Acres, a 22-acre homestead in the Catskill Mountains. To find out more about them and their plans and products, go to www.FlamingBunny.org.